A charred Herculaneum papyrus, too fragile to unroll without destroying the ink, has had its contents revealed using AI and non-contact imaging.

Researchers used high-energy X-ray scanning at Diamond Light Source to digitally unwrap the scroll, mapping its internal structure without touching it.

AI-driven analysis helped identify and segment portions of text, enabling experts from the Vesuvius Challenge to manually interpret the visible content.

The ink on the papyrus scans more clearly than in some other scrolls, possibly due to lead content, aiding letter detection by the AI.

The project marks a shift in the study of fragile ancient texts by combining imaging and artificial intelligence to recover text once deemed permanently inaccessible.

The effort aims to refine segmentation and imaging to reach deeper into the innermost parts of the scroll, where the title or colophon may be preserved.

The work is conducted in partnership with the Vesuvius Challenge, inviting broader collaboration to decipher the full contents of the manuscript.

Oxford University researchers and collaborators describe progress as promising, noting that this scroll contains more recoverable text than previously available in scanned Herculaneum scrolls.